EU In or Out

[+DoofersDad]

Welcome to the forum, CaleyCol!  It is good to have someone who wants to exchange a few thoughts and is prepared to debate a few things rather than have the usual vacuous one liners from the SNP / Independence supporters here.  Your first post contains a lot of interesting points - too many to respond to, I'm afraid, but I will pick up on a couple.

The first is the point you make about the EU referendum only being wanted by UKIP and the Tory right.  It has been repeated so often that it is now regarded as a given in many quarters.  But it is patently not true.  Presumably it was wanted by the majority of the electorate who voted for change, but it was also wanted by many "remainers" who felt that a vote to remain would herald the demise of UKIP and would confirm our commitment to Europe for the long term.  In other words, it was a majority of the electorate who wanted the referendum and that includes a very significant left wing element as evidenced by the strong Leave vote in England's industrial towns.  Not only was it wanted by a broad swathe of political opinion, it was democratically appropriate to have one. We voted to join with European partners 40 years ago and the EU as it is now is completely different from  the Union we voted to join then.  In addition, polls have been consistently showing a pretty high level of support for leaving the EU for a number of years.  I voted to remain, but I can have no complaint at either the legitimacy of having the referendum or the outcome.

Related to that you criticise Ruth Davidson for changing her view post Brexit, but I think that is unfair.  Rather than change her mind, she has done what Sturgeon seems pathologically incapable of, and that is accepting the result of a referendum which has not gone the way she wanted it to.  Davidson has basically said, "I don't like the result, but it is what it is, so let's make it work."  That is the sort of practical, democratic political leadership we urgently need but will never get from the SNP because they are fixated on a single goal.  Analyse any policy / statement / response they come out with and you can see that it is always made in response to the question "does this further the cause for independence?"

You say "Passing the buck to the Snp for 'creating instability' by not ruling out another referendum is hilarious from many conservatives, we all know where all this instability has come from and if the Union does split Brexit will have been the catalyst."  I agree that Brexit has caused instability but it was a democratic decision which, like it or not, we simply have to accept.  What we need from our political leaders of all persuasions is to work together to minimise instability and to get the best deal out of this for all in the UK.  Rather than do that, Sturgeon is muddying the waters with talk of a "reverse Greenland" solution and a 2nd independence referendum before she has the faintest idea of the kind of deal we may end up with.  We need the Scottish Government to work constructively to promote stability and promote Scotland's interests in working towards a UK wide settlement with our European neighbours.  But does a Brexit settlement which works well for Scotland within the UK further the cause for independence?  No.  Of course it doesn't.  And that is why Sturgeon is muddying the waters and creating further instability. 

One final point.  Please don't confuse grievance with objective criticism!  The Independence movement will only win their case if they can persuade the Scottish electorate that Scotland will be better off separate from the UK.  The current SNP leadership has decided that the best way to do this is to instil into the Scottish voter a sense of grievance - a sense that Scotland is denied investment, that we are electorally disenfranchised, that unionists "talk Scotland down".  It's all rubbish of course, but say it often enough and loudly enough and promise often enough and loudly enough that independence would bring a raft of unrealistic things, and a gullible electorate will begin to believe it.  I don't have a grievance with the SNP, I am simply very critical of them.  And that is a very different thing.

[+DoofersDad]

I see Sturgeon is at it yet again.  This time it is the release of a Scottish Government report detailing how much worse off Scotland will be as a result of Brexit.  She is reported as saying that this could have a severe impact on public spending and repeated her view that a 2nd independence referendum is "highly likely".

I suppose the first question that comes out of this is why has this report been published after the referendum rather than before it?  If the report has any validity at all then it was Sturgeon's responsibility to ensure that the information was available to the public for debate prior to the referendum in order to help inform our decision.  Of course, the reality is that the report cannot be anything other than highly speculative.  Had it been published before the referendum it would no doubt have been subject to rather more scrutiny and been shown up as speculative scaremongering.  Publishing it now allows Sturgeon to claim some justification for public spending cuts which she will say are a consequence of a right wing Tory engineered Brexit.  Again it is the strategy of blaming problems in Scotland on the Tory Government at Westminster in an attempt to drive a wedge between Scottish voters and the wider UK.

Truth is that any spending cuts will be a reflection of a continuation of SNP austerity.  A continuation of their failure to raise revenue with the powers delegated to them.  It is also worth remembering that Brexit was not the consequence of voting by the Tory right, it was a consequence of the voting of precisely the same socio-economic groups in the UK's industrial heartlands that have put the SNP into power in Scotland.

Sturgeon is quoted as saying it is "simply unacceptable that Scotland faces the prospect of being dragged out of the EU against its will".  This is illustrates that she either doesn't understand or chooses to ignore basic principles of democracy.  Two years ago the Scottish electorate voted to remain in the United Kingdom.  That meant that it was the will of the Scottish people to accept the democratic decision of the UK as a whole on UK wide matters.  In this particular instance, it means that the will of the Scottish people is to accept a decision made by the the UK electorate as a whole even though we don't agree with it.  Accepting the decision of the majority at all levels of Government is the bedrock of democracy.  Sturgeon needs to understand that what is "simply unacceptable" is to have the First Minister of Scotland not abiding by the basic principle.

 

[Charles Bannerman]

1 hour ago, DoofersDad said:

Sturgeon is quoted as saying it is "simply unacceptable that Scotland faces the prospect of being dragged out of the EU against its will".  

This is just standard SNP disingenuous bollox! Yes, 62% voted to remain but go about Scotland today and you really won't find people jumping up and down complaining about the way things have turned out. It's not a hot topic of conversation in pubs and cafes and certainly not the hot topic of grievance which the SNP would like to make it. All the appearances are that a lot of this 62% aren't really *rsed either way and in fact the strongest opinions that I hear are those of fishermen and farmers saying they are absolutely delighted to be shot of the EU. This is because powers over agriculture and fishing will now come back home - specifically to the Scottish Executive who therefore appear to be saying that they don't want these powers and would prefer that they reside in Brussels. Bizarre! The only people who are jumping up and down about any of this are the SNP because they think it represents their best chance of a grievance. That in itself is pretty ironic because the SNP used to be rabidly anti-European - until they came up with the wheeze of the slogan "Independence In Europe" so they changed their tune... as they tend to do with any issue if they think it will benefit their efforts to achieve their only policy.

I do realise that Wee Nicola has got the Braveheart Wing to appease, but all this nonsense about a second Neverendum is quite simply and unnecessarily prolonging uncertainty which should have ended when they got the bum's rush in September 2014. I do seem to remember that several months ago there was great sound and fury about some "summer push for independence" - which seems to have amounted to a couple of statements that a second referendum was "highly likely". I suppose that's the minimum she feels she can put on the table in order to keep the Bravehearters quiet and to avoid a riot in the Gelluns on a Saturday night. The reality is that Wee Nicola is bricking her tartan knickers at the thought of Neverendum2 because there's not a shred of evidence that they would be any more likely to win it than #1, and that's before brutal realities such as the collapse of oil and a hard border at Gretna are examined in detail.

As for their economic claims, various economists have been on during the day rubbishing the whole thing on the grounds that nobody who understands economics actually knows.... so what chance does the SNP have? There have also been some pretty heavy suggestions that this whole thing is just an attempted pre-emptive strike in advance of the GERS figures - and by that I don't mean P3 W2 D1 Pts 7.... I mean the expected forthcoming economic revelation that Scotland's economy is highly and increasingly dependent on being bailed out by the rest of the UK.

But hey.... where are all the Nats that used to be so voluble on here? DD, myself and one or two other Believers in Britain are really missing hearing what the view is from the other side of the fence. Maybe they're all away celebrating Team GB's medals.... especially the 14 out of 17 that Scots won in partnership with team mates from elsewhere in the UK?

Edited August 23, 2016 by Charles Bannerman

[Kingsmills]

On 19 August 2016 at 11:07 PM, IBM said:

Welcome CaleyCol, good posts, you already have Charles going and the more posts you put in the more he rants  

He rants because he is clearly not capable of rational, lucid and coherent debate with those who disagree with his position on any topic.

[+DoofersDad]

38 minutes ago, Kingsmills said:

He rants because he is clearly not capable of rational, lucid and coherent debate with those who disagree with his position on any topic.

And where is your "rational, lucid and coherent debate" with those who disagree with your position?  Throughout this thread we have had numerous rational, lucid and coherent criticisms of the SNP but all we get in response is cowardly red dots and meaningless little one line jibes.  Nobody appears to have any arguments to actually address the points raised.  Constant one-liner digs at Charles does constitute coherent debate.  You have been challenged on more than one occasion in this thread to respond to the criticism made but you consistently fail to do so.  There is actually more "rational, lucid and coherent debate" in Charles' last post than in all your posts in this thread put together.

As I've said before, I don't mind the red dots.  In the absence of any rational reply it simply confirms to me that those dishing them out are utterly incapable of responding to the points raised. So, now that you have advocated "rational, lucid and coherent debate" it would be really good if you could finally engage in some.

 

[Charles Bannerman]

12 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

this whole thing is just an attempted pre-emptive strike in advance of the GERS figures

.....which today tell us "another year, another £15 billion black hole".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-37167975

Scotland has a per capita shortfall in its public spending more than TWICE that of the UK which is therefore subsidising us to a pretty whacking extent. Thank God for the Barnett Formula.

And of course, "It's Skintland's Oil".... aye, all £60 million worth of revenue - a whacking, and now terminal slump of NINETY SEVEN PER CENT! So what price the SNP's Second Oil Boom? $113 a barrel? I somehow don't think so!

So what's Wee Nicola saying to all this?

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon insisted the "foundations of the Scottish economy remain strong".

She added: "The lower oil price has, of course, reduced offshore revenues, with a corresponding impact on our fiscal position - this underlines the fact that Scotland's challenge is to continue to grow our onshore economy."

OK so she kicks off with the standard SNP unsubstantiated assertion, then quietly dodges the fact that the oil industry is terminally knackered before finishing with a statement of the bleeding obvious that all economies should be trying to do all the time. The only trouble is that we can't grow ours because the only thing Superwoman and her chums are interested in growing is the Brexit Grievance, to which end she is too busy instead grovelling for interviews with minor EU apparatchiks in sundry European capitals.

So there you have it - hard, official Government figures which show how badly the SCOTTISH economy DID ACTUALLY perform... far more relevant than yesterday's optimistic tosh about how much money the SNP actually THOUGHT (I should say HOPED) MIGHT be lost as a result of Brexit and a complete smokescreen from the real problem which is just one of many that they are continually refusing to address due to a quite "separate" fixation.

And once again, amid all this "summer surge for independence" where, apart from the odd inane and irrelevant one liner, are all our local and formerly very voluble Nats who used to have plenty to say? 

Edited August 24, 2016 by Charles Bannerman

[+DoofersDad]

On 24/08/2016 at 10:09 AM, DoofersDad said:

And where is your "rational, lucid and coherent debate" with those who disagree with your position?  Throughout this thread we have had numerous rational, lucid and coherent criticisms of the SNP but all we get in response is cowardly red dots and meaningless little one line jibes.  Nobody appears to have any arguments to actually address the points raised.  Constant one-liner digs at Charles does constitute coherent debate.  You have been challenged on more than one occasion in this thread to respond to the criticism made but you consistently fail to do so.  There is actually more "rational, lucid and coherent debate" in Charles' last post than in all your posts in this thread put together.

As I've said before, I don't mind the red dots.  In the absence of any rational reply it simply confirms to me that those dishing them out are utterly incapable of responding to the points raised. So, now that you have advocated "rational, lucid and coherent debate" it would be really good if you could finally engage in some.

 

Reading through this I see I missed out a rather important "not" in the highlighted section.  Sorry Charles!

With regard to the red dots, others only see the net reputation on the post.  The post actually had 3 green dots and 2 red dots.  In other words some folk are still willing to dish out the red dots but are not prepared to make any attempt at saying why they disagree. But to be fair, I accept that defending the indefensible is a tough ask.

I referred earlier to the report the SNP belatedly published on Tuesday on the possible financial consequences of Brexit.  Sturgeon said this could be up to £11.2bn a year by 2030.  Everyone agrees this is highly speculative but yet Sturgeon used this as an argument why she would do all she could to ensure Scotland stayed in the EU.  And then the very next day, the Scottish Government issue the GERS figures which show that Scotland's actual budget deficit now is £14.8bn.  Consider these facts:-

1. More Scots voted to remain in the UK than voted to remain in the EU.
2. Public expenditure in Scotland is £1,200 per head higher than in the rest of the UK despite the Scottish tax take being about £400 per head lower.than the UK average.  The UK therefore massively subsidises public spending in Scotland and an independent Scotland would need to somehow massively increase revenue just to allow our public services to stand still.  The shortfall between our revenue and our spend is around £2,600 per head!  If you think austerity over the last few years was bad, just wait till we're independent!
3. If Scotland were independent it would have a higher per capita budget deficit than any country in the EU.  Whilst I don't think the EU would necessarily block an independent Scotland from joining, it would only be allowed to join provided measures were taken to reduce the deficit.  As a result, It may well be that the electorate would not vote to join the EU on those terms.  I would suggest, for example, that it would be highly likely that the EU conditions would be to block the kind of irresponsible borrowing Swinney was proposing in order to fund his promises / bribes to the traditional labour voters in the Indy referendum.  That is the kind of irresponsibility that led to problems and subsequent sanctions in Greece.  And people talk about independence meaning Scotland would have control over its own affairs 

When the democratic process has demonstrated that more people want to be in the UK then want to be in the EU, why on earth does this wretched Government want to plunge us into certain turmoil by walking away from the ecomomic security the UK provides and plunging us into massive uncertainty and all sorts of potential "strings attached", in continuing to pursue this "independence in Europe" nonsense?

The case for independence is utterly discredited.

 

[Charles Bannerman]

3 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

The case for independence is utterly discredited.

DD I'm afraid I'm going to have to take minor issue with you here!

If the "case" is "discredited", that would appear to suggest that at some point in the past it did have some credit or credibility. However I am very much of the view that it never had a vestige of either of these in the first place. It's just that events which have unfolded since September 2014 have exposed the Nats unsubstantiated(able) and optimistic burblings even more starkly for the nonsense they always have been and also shown that what they tried so hard to brand "Project Fear" was nothing more than very legitimate caution on the part of the Believers in Britain.

It would be a fascinating exercise in video journalism to select a range of clips of people like Salmond, Sturgeon and the rest of the Nat Pack holding forth, pre-referendum, with all this disingenuous bollox and intercutting these with a similar variety of post-referendum news clips about the plunge in the oil price, unemployment in the oil industry, the plight of Aberdeen, the absolutely dire GERS figures for both succeeding years. You could also throw in admissions from various former SNP spin doctors that what they were saying, and especially the White Paper, was really pie in the sky.

The Nats had been desperately hoping for a surge in support after the Brexit vote but this simply hasn't happened. Indeed what is far, far more likely is that the 44.7 will start defecting to the side of sanity at a rate of knots, now it is becoming clear that Scotland on its own would be an even worse economic basket case than Greece. On the basis of these numbers I just can't see the EU touching this politically fractious new state with an economy of which most banana republics would be thoroughly ashamed, and therein lies the fundamental fallacy in Wee Nicola's city-hopping tour. The chances of a separate Scotland getting into the EU with finances as catastrophic as that are minimal - the EU does have standards to maintain after all - and even if it did, the  accompanying fiscal requirements would make Greece look like a picnic.

And it's at this point that you wonder what would happen when it dawned on the SNP's core support that the price of getting into the EU was the slashing and butchering of their benefits.....

PS - looks as if the CTO Natpack are still out somewhere purchasing their latest consignment of red ink.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Charles Bannerman

[CaleyCol]

Hi DD, thanks for the welcome, likewise there are too many points to cover but I'll try and pick a few

I don't deny there was a left wing case/desire for an eu referendum, but this was very much the animal of the right. The prominence and indeed existence of Ukip was testament to this. It was Cameron's posturing to gain back the Ukipper votes which brought us the referendum. It's that same fact that will ensure a 'hard' Brexit and not a 'soft' one. May has to keep the right winger/devout Brexiters on side and content with the package. The nature of the FPTP system means smaller parties like Ukip only need to threaten to take enough votes to jeopardise the Westminster majority thus they can end up moulding the government itself. 

When you said "We voted to join with European partners 40 years ago and the EU as it is now is completely different from  the Union we voted to join then".. I thought that encapsulated well a good part of how I feel about my vote to endorse the Uk union 2 years ago. The politics, rhetoric and vision of Nigel Farage and Leave won the day on June 23rd shaping the path the Uk is now going to take, watching Mr Farage campaign for Donald Trump this morning underlined the troubling political reality we now find ourselves in.

"Please don't confuse grievance with objective criticism!  The Independence movement will only win their case if they can persuade the Scottish electorate that Scotland will be better off separate from the UK" 

The eu ref, the Uk government falling to pieces/going missing and the dramatic economic challenges it's now presented us with have done a good job recently for Scottish independence, it's not just it's supporters doing the convincing

My point was, obsessing over the Snp shouldn't dominate a broad discussion. The ineptitude and death of Labour in Scotland has had an enormous effect on the independence debate. Its current absolutely disastrous state, Uk wide, means that there is no effective opposition, this gifts the Snp the even further ground its gained in polls post Brexit.

As I noted in the earlier post, the media demolition of the Labour Party/Corbyn following the vote was obviously some sort of effort to distract attention from the utter omnishambles the Conservatives had created for themselves. The problem though was on the one hand this had deflected attention from their internal troubles and took down the opposition, on the other, it painted the Snp as the sanest, most prepared of the bunch

Regarding the Snp's legitimacy at holding another referendum, I guess we must remember they were elected with it in the manifesto under the 'material change' scenario, I remember long term Snp critic, Conservative voter and writer for the right leaning Spectator Alex Massie noted as much in his initial post Brexit summary a few weeks back
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/06/brexit-beginning-end-britain/

Regarding GERS. 17m people voted to side with leaders that opined "we've had enough of experts" and against the advice of pretty much every credible economist you can think of. Numbers and figures evidently don't scare people now, look at what Cameron and Osbourne threw at us before Brexit. An independent Scotland is uncertain and wouldn't be easy, likewise for Brexit. Take your pick 

GERS is a terrible yearly political football anyway. When the oil prices are high, the Snp are singing about it, when they're low, they're dismissing the report.

Evidently GERS is highly contentious at best, it's conception was designed to undermine the case for devolution was it not? or as the then Conservative Scottish secretary Ian Lang said "This is an initiative which will allow us to score against all of our political opponents."  It's cynical to the max, just like the Snp releasing their Brexit figures beforehand is. It's all politicking 

If I had to note something interesting in the figures it would be that the media have, as always, focused on Oil (much like the Snp have over the years) but non-Oil revenues are up 1.9billion.... that's greater than the 1.8billion decrease in oil revenues. So oil revenues have tanked to almost nothing, yet onshore revenues have grown to cancel it out and marginally narrow the deficit. Surely Oil is a bonus then and the Scottish economy should not be defined by this finite commodity, we're resource rich in other areas, where investment plans should be discussed fully and openly but the battle lines were drawn over the oil issue years ago and we've had to suffer this tedious obsession over percentages every time GERS roll out, it's pretty dire and predictable from both sides really and certainly shouldn't merit the media traction it receives. Especially given we don't yet know how 'Brexit means Brexit' is going to impact us yet

 

 

Edited August 25, 2016 by CaleyCol

[Charles Bannerman]

54 minutes ago, CaleyCol said:

Surely Oil is a bonus then and the Scottish economy should not be defined by this finite commodity, we're resource rich in other areas, where investment plans should be discussed fully and openly but the battle lines were drawn over the oil issue years ago and we've had to suffer this tedious obsession over percentages every time GERS roll out, it's pretty dire and predictable from both sides really and certainly shouldn't merit the media traction it receives. Especially given we don't yet know how 'Brexit means Brexit' is going to impact us yet

 

Col... it was the SNP who "invaded Poland" on that one. They were the ones who, from the 1970s, continually flooded us with "It's Scotland's Oil" sloganizing and used alleged oil wealth as the cornerstone of their campaign for separation. Alex Salmond absolutely savaged a Labour MSP at Holyrood for doubting his dogma of the centrality of oil revenues to the separation case and it played a massive part in the nonsense the plied us with up to September 2014. I am sure Salmond has no intention of apologising since, despite being an apology for a politician, he doesn't do apologising. Since then, the backside has fallen out of the oil myth - as it always was going to do - and suddenly the SNP throw into the bin what they have been shouting for 40 years and dismiss oil as "a bonus". What the current GERS figures show is that, without the "here today, gone tomorrow" of oil - on which they based a case for separation forever - Scotland spends £15 billion a year more than it earns, irrespective of the £1.9 bn "non oil" improvement which only amounts to a tiny fraction of an intractable problem.

I don't see why the GERS figures should be conveniently ignored when they tell us something the SNP doesn't want us to know. The media are no more than telling us the truth by quoting numbers which, without their vigilance, the SNP would go to the ends of the earth to conceal just like everything else that doesn't suit their single policy dogma. Indeed we don't know how Brexit is going to impact us... but that didn't stop Sturgeon's fantasy economics on Tuesday. But what we DO know is that Scotland is currently running a deficit larger than your average banana republic but is preserved from the consequences by being part of the UK.

[CaleyCol]

Indeed Charles, the Snp have historically painted themselves in to a corner in that respect, the oil market is a fluctuating one, 'feast or famine' so it doesn't draw enough continuity to provide a solid economic plan built for year upon year. 

How many people really take heed of GERS in reality though, your average joe on the street isn't going to be discussing the deficit, many won't even know what it is, never mind as a share of the GDP or the fact it's normal to have one, how else do you create growth?

The best way to preserve the Uk is to demonstrate Scotland performing economically well within it, a day/week spent advertising or drumming home that "we're fooked" isn't an advert for continuation of the Union.

On the other hand, as I said, look what happened with Brexit, wall to wall doom and gloom (a lot of it merited) and warnings of economic collapse and recession, yet 17m people voted Brexit despite that. The independence economic issue was complex in 2014, it's 10 times that now and thus harder to boil down to a binary choice good/bad. The result may well be that a future Indy debate won't be won on fiscal interpretations but other issues. We just don't know

 

 

[+DoofersDad]

A couple of good posts there, Col.  It is an important point you make about the support for the SNP and for independence being helped greatly by the ineptness of the Tories and Labour.  The SNP have been much smarter politically and have ruthlessly exploited the infighting in the Labour party.  They have kept internal discipline with all their MPs and MSPs openly supporting retaining EU membership even though we know they are deeply divided over the issue.  They know there is not a cat in hell's chance of winning independence unless they show a united front on that prior to independence being won. Labour is being taken over by the hard left and it is actually very sad to see them spending so much effort in doing the exact opposite of the SNP and making themselves totally unelectable. Not much point saying more about them just now until we know whether their rent a mob "members" re-elect Corbyn again.  It's a complete and utter farce.

You say folk on the street are not going to be discussing the deficit.  You may be right but isn't that a shocking reflection of modern society and the media?  It is things like this that really matter.  These sorts of facts underpin whether or not we really can honour pledges to fund the NHS better, for example.  The reality of the deficit serves to underpin the lies behind the promises. Scotland's deficit is at a level significantly higher than the EU considers appropriate for entering the EU.  You can't just brush it aside as the SNP's new Finance Secretary Derek MacKay does.  His comment that the UK's per capita deficit post recession was about the same as Scotland's is now and the EU didn't kick Britain out, is utterly facile and irresponsible.  The 2 big differences are that the UK was already in and has subsequently taken action to significantly reduce the deficit.  Scotland would be joining and actually proposes to increase the deficit by increasing public spending in an Independent Scotland.

Regarding oil, I agree there is too much focus on it.  But having said that, the SNP need to be hammered on their pre-independence referendum position.  Apart from being utterly fanciful, it was also dishonest in what it implied.  Since oil started flowing from the North Sea, I think there have only been a couple of years that revenues for Scotland's share have peaked the £10bn mark; firstly at the peak of the oil boom in the mid 80s and secondly during the brief boom in 2008/9.  But even at that level of revenue, Scotland would still have a deficit of around £5bn!  The reality is that in an independent Scotland, the Scottish Government would be compelled to reduce public spending and/or raise taxes by a considerable amount.

But the good news for Scotland is that despite the poor state of the Scottish economy, levels of public spending and taxation are maintained at a level other countries envy.  That is possible because of the stability the larger and less volatile UK economy brings to Scotland.  

I know posts can sometimes seem like a fixation on the SNP, but unfortunately they are the party of Government and are hell bent on a single course of action which will be hugely damaging for the country and which the electorate have already clearly rejected. Whilst I agree that we should not lose sight of the bigger picture, the SNP have become so fundamentally dishonest that they need to be constantly held to account.  One final point on the legitimacy of a 2nd referendum.  The fact that it was in their manifesto does not give them a mandate to call one.  People vote for parties across the whole policy range and not on one issue.  There are good reasons why referendums should be once in a generation events at most, and prior to the result, that is what the SNP leadership promised.  They should honour their promises and respect the will of the people as demonstrated in the result.

[Charles Bannerman]

1 hour ago, DoofersDad said:

 It is an important point you make about the support for the SNP and for independence being helped greatly by the ineptness of the Tories and Labour.  

 

You say folk on the street are not going to be discussing the deficit.  You can't just brush it aside as the SNP's new Finance Secretary Derek MacKay does.  

 

Regarding oil, I agree there is too much focus on it.  But having said that, the SNP need to be hammered on their pre-independence referendum position.

 

But the good news for Scotland is that despite the poor state of the Scottish economy, levels of public spending and taxation are maintained at a level other countries envy.  That is possible because of the stability the larger and less volatile UK economy brings to Scotland.  

 

Whilst I agree that we should not lose sight of the bigger picture, the SNP have become so fundamentally dishonest that they need to be constantly held to account.  

 

They should honour their promises and respect the will of the people as demonstrated in the result.

Half a dozen points there that are well worth following up on, so in the order above....

The ineptness of Labour in particular since we are now paying the price of their earlier quest for electability. Having largely, by the 80s, made themselves unelectable, their plan to change that involved taking on board a whole lot of Tory policies and, in Scotland, touting a Scottish Assembly. In the latter case, although George Robertson promised us that this would "kill nationalism stone dead", the price of Labour's internal makeover was to give the Nats a soapbox  we really didn't need them to have. To compound matters, Labour thought that the Scottish Assembly's PR system would prevent the Nats from ever getting a majority - but then they lost the place so miserably and became so complacent about Scotland being their eternal fiefdom that the bombed so badly that the Nats were let in on an own goal. The main reason for that has been that the SNP's historically crank led but pretty limited core support has been temporarily supplemented by grievance-susceptible traditional Labour voters who feel abandoned. Subsequent UK Labour catastrophes have simply made this worse. So my message to "New??" Labour is... "J'accuse....". I overwhelmingly blame you for the current threat to the UK.

People in the street tend not to discuss politics and they sure aren't discussing Brexit either, much as the Nats would love the grievance factor to ramp up as a result. Derek MacKay's Radio Scotland interview was a total car crash. Let me also quote one wonderful incidental passage: "Of course it is the case that we didn't have a success in the referendum in 2014 in terms of us being independent". What verbose bollox. Derek..... YOU LOST!!!

As I said.... "They started it, they invaded Poland". Now, after 40 years of incessant banging on about oil, the whole thing has come back to bite them in the backside, so let's just take that wonderful opportunity to get it right up them!

In this comment on the dilution of the Scottish economic debacle as a result of being part of Britain, DD - as I have done myself - merely reiterates the bleeding obvious.

The ONLY political force holding the SNP to account to any appreciable extent is the Scottish Conservatives and Ruth Davidson is quite good at it. I have to say that Willie Rennie is sometimes not bad while Oor Kez inevitably just sounds like some wee lassie in a school debating competition. For thosewho believe in Britain, it is a civic duty to stand up to the SNP and it's interesting to watch the intensifying challenge to the SNP in the letters pages of newspapers - except the National of course, but that just has a circulation round about the combined total of a couple of local newspapers. Some of us challenge the SNP regularly on here but the goal we are attacking seems to be increasingly devoid of previously voluble defenders. I would again take minor issue with the quoted section and would contend that the SNP cannot "have become so fundamentally dishonest" since there was never a scrap of honesty about them in the first place.

Yup.... as frequently stated before, they can't expect to be able to "do an IRA" and keep having these votes until they get the one favourable result they need. They asked for 2014, chose the date, chose the question, chose the rules.... and they lost. Now they are back in the bookies shop asking for their money back so they can keep putting it on the same horse.

Edited August 26, 2016 by Charles Bannerman

[Charles Bannerman]

6 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

the SNP's historically crank led but pretty limited core support has been temporarily supplemented by grievance-susceptible traditional Labour voters

On which subject, today I spotted that a poll of Sunreaders (here's hoping this won't be PC-moderated for being "Sunreaderophobic") had apparently produced  a highly predictable 73% for yes in any second visit to the bookie's by Wee Nicola. QED.

Of more relevance, though, is this week's update of the Inverness Courier poll on whether - post Brexit -  Nic should even bother going back to Ladbrokes at all. The poll has been running for several weeks now and is currently indicating 29.8% support for a second vote - and that in allegedly rabidly pro-Nat Inverness. Now I do admit that this is possibly not a particularly large sample, but on the other hand people have been voting steadily as can be seen from constant changes over the weeks to the numbers, although never more than a couple of percentage points on either side of one third of respondents supporting such a wheeze, so opposition to #2 is obviously pretty consistent. And all that without even a Portland Club for the Nats to claim as the centre of a conspiracy.

Obviously this may change, and quite suddenly, if the Cynernats get wind of what's happening and start a Twitter surge among their chums or the paper starts getting passed round the Gelluns. Remember how a previous Courier poll in 1993, which happened to coincide with when a well known Caley Rebel worked with Menzies newspaper distribution, suddenly allegedly showed 83% opposition to the merger among a readership the vast majority of whom couldn't have given a hoot.

But anyway, it seems that the good people of Inverness aren't rushing to express their vehement support for another Neverendum on the basis of "material change".

Edited August 26, 2016 by Charles Bannerman

[ictfcsince94]

Surely this court ruling today should have happened before a referendum?

Whats the point in having a referendum if parliament can then ignore it and then vote as they wish! 

[Charles Bannerman]

5 hours ago, ictfcsince94 said:

Surely this court ruling today should have happened before a referendum?

Whats the point in having a referendum if parliament can then ignore it and then vote as they wish! 

Before the referendum, I don't think too many people expected a Leave vote in something that David Cameron was basically doing to appease his Eurosceptic wing so there probably didn't seem to be any compelling need.

It would now also be interesting to see whether this judgement would act as a legal precedent in the event of any future Scottish referendum also going the way of The Dark Side?

As a result, between one thing and another, it leaves an interesting choice for the Nats. As rabid Europhiles (albeit largely and recently converted by expediency), do they support the judgement? Or are they privately bricking it that this could rob them of their current whinge and at the same time create a possible legal precedent for the future? "Scotsman speak with forked tongue!"

Edited November 3, 2016 by Charles Bannerman

[Kingsmills]

27 minutes ago, Charles Bannerman said:

Before the referendum, I don't think too many people expected a Leave vote in something that David Cameron was basically doing to appease his Eurosceptic wing so there probably didn't seem to be any compelling need.

It would now also be interesting to see whether this judgement would act as a legal precedent in the event of any future Scottish referendum also going the way of The Dark Side?

As a result, between one thing and another, it leaves an interesting choice for the Nats. As rabid Europhiles (albeit largely and recently converted by expediency), do they support the judgement? Or are they privately bricking it that this could rob them of their current whinge and at the same time create a possible legal precedent for the future? "Scotsman speak with forked tongue!"

If it sets any precedent it's that there requires to be ratification by the appropriate parliament. In the case of Scottish independence, the appropriate parliament is Holyrood rather than Westminster so will only be a practical issue in the unlikely event that, at the relevant time, there is a majority against independence.

The other significant difference is that the Independence Referendum is and will be again binding whereas the 'Brexit' referendum was merely consultative.

Leaving aside any constitutional niceties, it certainly appears that the cat has been set among the Brexit pigeons. It will be interesting to see whether the Westminster executive can whip enough of their pro European MPs and cajole enough Ulster Unionists to get the necessary vote passed. The Orangemen apart, I imagine the other parties will be united in opposition.

If I had a few bob to spare I would stick it on a General Election next year.

Edited November 3, 2016 by Kingsmills

[+DoofersDad]

The UK's Parliamentry constitution is a complicated thing having emerged in 1707 based on the pre-existing Westminster based Parliament.  We don't have a written constitution and as a result of this there is great uncertainty around fundamental constitutional matters.  Different "constitutional experts" tend to be able to find some justification to suit their own particular standpoint.  It is all very well referring to "constitutional niceties"  but the ultimate legal ruling on what powers the UK's constitution allows to the Executive or Parliament may have significant ramifications.

But whatever the future ramifications are, my view is that if it comes to a parliamentary vote, Parliament will vote to trigger section 50 because regardless of their own preferences, sufficient MPs who voted to remain will vote to respect the will of the people.  

Implications for Scotland are interesting.  Just because Cameron said that the result of the Independence referendum would be binding does not mean that it would have been or that a future one would be.  My understanding is that notwithstanding Cameron and Salmond's agreement, for independence to have actually happened after a "YES" vote, legislation to disband the Union would have been required to be passed by the Westminster Parliament.  Implications here for Scotland are that if the SNP rabble at Westminster vote in defiance of the stated wishes of the UK electorate in a UK vote, they may potentially find that others vote in defiance of the stated wishes of the Scottish electorate should the Scots ever be foolish enough to vote for independence.

I agree with ictfcsince94 that the correct legal position for dealing with the result should be clarified prior to any referendum taking place.  My personal view of what should happen is that if parliament votes to hold a referendum in the first place it should respect the result.  I voted to remain but I believe that Brexit means Brexit - just as "NO" means "NO".

 

[Charles Bannerman]

5 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

In the case of Scottish independence, the appropriate parliament is Holyrood rather than Westminster.

No it ain't. The constitution is a reserved matter and, just as you chaps need permission to hold your second visit to the bookies with the money you lost in 2014, (to which end you are getting so artificially pumped up with Brexitrage), the sovereign entity after the event is also the Westminster parliament. By the same token, you wouldn't expect any proposed closure of Fort George to be vetoed by Holyrood because neither is defence a devolved matter. (Mind you the irony there is that a lot more than Fort George would need to be closed in the face of the pitiful armed forces that a separate Scotland would have, but let's not be party poopers for Drew Hendry's latest grievance against Westminster.)

So the bottom line is that if one Westminster sanctioned referendum has been judged to require Westminster Parliamentary approval, then (if it ever received sanction at all , never mind ended up on the Dark Side) so should another one by the same token.

[Charles Bannerman]

2 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

the SNP rabble at Westminster

 

I wonder how many of them would be left to provide their families and chums with well paid lackey posts if Theresa May were to call a General Election off the back of today's judgement? I mean, surely even many of your most diehard SNP voters must be able to see what a complete spectacle they have made of Scotland on the big stage. On the other hand, if most of them did get back, that might actually make a bit of a case for separation because if the Scottish electorate were to be capable of being as making the same utterly stupid mistake twice in a row, the UK might be well rid.

[Kingsmills]

10 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

No it ain't. The constitution is a reserved matter and, just as you chaps need permission to hold your second visit to the bookies with the money you lost in 2014, (to which end you are getting so artificially pumped up with Brexitrage), the sovereign entity after the event is also the Westminster parliament. By the same token, you wouldn't expect any proposed closure of Fort George to be vetoed by Holyrood because neither is defence a devolved matter. (Mind you the irony there is that a lot more than Fort George would need to be closed in the face of the pitiful armed forces that a separate Scotland would have, but let's not be party poopers for Drew Hendry's latest grievance against Westminster.)

So the bottom line is that if one Westminster sanctioned referendum has been judged to require Westminster Parliamentary approval, then (if it ever received sanction at all , never mind ended up on the Dark Side) so should another one by the same token.

Don't ever let your complete ignorance of the matter get in the way of a good #SNP Bad rant.

[+DoofersDad]

2 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

Don't ever let your complete ignorance of the matter get in the way of a good #SNP Bad rant.

What is the basis of your comment?  The Edinburgh agreement came about because Westminster agreed to an exception from the Scotland Act 1998 to allow the Scottish Government to hold a referendum.  Similarly, they will need Westminster's consent for a 2nd referendum.  What would happen in the event of a 2nd referendum producing a vote to leave is less clear.

Whilst the SNP complain bitterly about the current confusion around Brexit, the situation around the break up of the UK would be even more complex for a variety of reasons and the SNP has done nothing to provide the voter with any idea what the process and terms of separation would be.  For a start, Brexit is simply (although it is not that simple!) a question of an individual state deciding to leave a collective.  Scottish Independence would be the splitting of a sovereign state in which the day to day life is far more entwined with the infrastructure of the the rest of the UK than the UK's is with Europe.  It is all very well for Scotland to vote to leave, but what would the terms of that be?  Because the UK is a sovereign state and unlike with Brexit, the UK would need to agree for Scotland to leave.  It will agree when the Westminster Parliament is happy with the terms of the severance - terms which the Scots may not be happy with and would not have voted for had they been agreed prior to a referendum.  Of course, Holyrood could always make a Unilateral Declaration of Independence but it wouldn't get much in the way international support if it did that.

This is why we really ought to think things through a bit more seriously as a nation.  An independence referendum should be about giving an instruction to Government to negotiate a package for an independent Scotland.  When a package is finalised, that should then be put to the people to vote on whether or not we wanted to accept the package.  In that way, a Yes vote at the 2nd stage could be viewed as a clear, settled and informed decision by the electorate.  For such an important and irrevocable issue we should be demanding nothing less from our constitution.

[Kingsmills]

29 minutes ago, DoofersDad said:

What is the basis of your comment?  The Edinburgh agreement came about because Westminster agreed to an exception from the Scotland Act 1998 to allow the Scottish Government to hold a referendum.  Similarly, they will need Westminster's consent for a 2nd referendum.  What would happen in the event of a 2nd referendum producing a vote to leave is less clear.

Whilst the SNP complain bitterly about the current confusion around Brexit, the situation around the break up of the UK would be even more complex for a variety of reasons and the SNP has done nothing to provide the voter with any idea what the process and terms of separation would be.  For a start, Brexit is simply (although it is not that simple!) a question of an individual state deciding to leave a collective.  Scottish Independence would be the splitting of a sovereign state in which the day to day life is far more entwined with the infrastructure of the the rest of the UK than the UK's is with Europe.  It is all very well for Scotland to vote to leave, but what would the terms of that be?  Because the UK is a sovereign state and unlike with Brexit, the UK would need to agree for Scotland to leave.  It will agree when the Westminster Parliament is happy with the terms of the severance - terms which the Scots may not be happy with and would not have voted for had they been agreed prior to a referendum.  Of course, Holyrood could always make a Unilateral Declaration of Independence but it wouldn't get much in the way international support if it did that.

This is why we really ought to think things through a bit more seriously as a nation.  An independence referendum should be about giving an instruction to Government to negotiate a package for an independent Scotland.  When a package is finalised, that should then be put to the people to vote on whether or not we wanted to accept the package.  In that way, a Yes vote at the 2nd stage could be viewed as a clear, settled and informed decision by the electorate.  For such an important and irrevocable issue we should be demanding nothing less from our constitution.

You too seem to see fit to post in ignorance of the 'constitution' and, more to the point, the well established principles of international law. Not surprised at CB, rather surprised at you.

[+DoofersDad]

1 hour ago, Kingsmills said:

You too seem to see fit to post in ignorance of the 'constitution' and, more to the point, the well established principles of international law. Not surprised at CB, rather surprised at you.

I don't have a problem with admitting my ignorance on the constitutional position here.  I started my previous post asking you to back up your earlier statement, but rather than do that you chose to criticise me for my ignorance rather than enlighten us.   There are 2 questions here.  

1.  Can Westminster prevent Holyrood having a 2nd referendum?

2.  In the event of vote for Independence in a Scottish referendum, can Westminster block the creation of an Independent Scotland?

These are perfectly reasonable questions asked with a view to establishing basic facts and are completely separate from any debate on whether Westminster should or would block if a referendum was 1) proposed and 2) subsequently held.

My view on 1) is that Westminster can block it - a point which the Scottish Government themselves have made clear in their consultation document on the draft independence bill.

My view on 2) is less clear.  Internationally, countries have achieved independence in a wide variety of circumstances - sometimes peacefully and all too often following bloodshed.  Peaceful routes to internationally accepted independence are won when the "mother country" agrees to the country's independence but I am not personally aware of any international law which binds a "mother country" to accept secession following a referendum.  In this context it is pertinent to note that the Republic of Ireland only gained its independence once the Westminster Parliament had passed the Irish  Free State Constitution Act in 1922.  

Precedent in the UK would seem to suggest, therefore that independence for Scotland would require the Westminster Parliament to pass an act of parliament to allow Scotland to secede from the Union.  I fully accept that there are probably different arguments too, for instance there may be arguments based on the 1707 Act of Union.  I simply don't know.

Kingsmills, if you are claiming superior knowledge on these issues, perhaps you would be good enough to enlighten us with your views on the 2 fundamental questions I have posed.

 

[Charles Bannerman]

In 1997 the Labour Party, desperate for electability, volunteered to open a Westminster Branch Office in Edinburgh to look after some of the local stuff which, in recent years, those running the Branch Office have signally failed to do. The big ticket items like Defence, Foreign Policy and the Constitution were not farmed out in this way. That is why the SNP had to get permission to hold the 2014 referendum and that is why they will again require the same permission should they ever manage to incite enough grievance and unhappiness to make it seem worth the risk to them. The Branch Office has NO locus in terms of constitutional matters. It therefore appears that any approval of any change by elected members would be done at HQ, with no input either appropriate or necessary from any group of people tasked with local administration of hospitals, police, schools etc.

It's interesting, though, that an EU thread should again drift in the direction of the separation issue. Interesting but hardly surprising given that, since the Euroreferendum result, the SNP - scenting the potential for another gripe - have spontaneously transformed themselves from being simply "pro-EU in the hope of a split vote" to full blown, frothing at the mouth, Junckeresque Euro-obsessives, desperate to throw any vestige of sovereignty in the direction of Brusssels. This is despite perhaps 300-400,000 SNP voters actually having voted Leave and also despite only a 67.2% turnout, which hardly suggests that the Scottish electorate is remotely as *rsed either way as the SNP now claims to be. After all, only 41% of the Scottish electorate cared enough about Remaining to bother to go and vote to do so.

On the other hand, it emerges today that SNP former Cabinet Secretary Alex Neil was not among them. He has now revealed that, contrary to the edict of Party Central, he voted Leave and he claims that other SNP MSPs did likewise.